Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·.AMA Grand S·CCU Country series . Round 5: Boyers GNCC C O NallonalO N Y·· R S ross TR . (Left) After getting narrowl y beaten by Scott Pless inger at last year 's race , Fred Andrews (2) came back to score a close win over Tom Norton. (Below) Plessinger (1) leads Duane Conner (6) and . Martin Keltzrneier (122) Into the woods at the start of theGNCC Boyers National. The 34-year-old Ohioan was riding fast but cautiously around the circuit when he caught a hidden stump on the left sid e of his CR250 Honda. "You can 't miss what you can 't see," said a frustrated Carson after dropping out with a destroyed gear shifter and cracked cases . 'This is the first race this year that we have had where I felt really comfortable and had everything working perfectly. 1guess that's just racing." "I rode up the middle of the start to fifth ," said Norton, who, much to everyone's surprise, put his small-bore 125 in the lead by the end of the first lap . "We put a rock under the rear tire to prevent from rollin g backwards. Cooper was right in front of me but knocked himself down in the second comer. At the first m udhole everyone went right. 1 went left and ban g! 1 was in the lead. lied for severa l mil es befo re 1 hit something in the tall grass and went down. 1 go t up quickly with only An drews getting by, but he was easy to catch. It was literally a mule train of the top eight riders for the first lap." Norton led that train with Andrews, Duane Conner, Plessinger, Hatch, KTMmoun ted Martin Kehlmeier, Scott Phelps, and Gene Onail following in close order. Doug Blackwell and Cooper were also wi thin sight of that lead train. local stom ping grounds. Those rocks are like home plate to me." Leaving the slick, grassy, uphill starting line, Suzuki's Hatch got the jump on the rest of the Pro class and tea mmate Cooper, Honda of Troy's Tom Carson and Plessinger into the wood s. But Cooper made an early miscue when he lost his front wheel in the first set of rocks in turn two and went down, allowing the rest of the pack to motor past him. Next to ma ke a mistake was Carson. "Tomm y goes fast through those rocks so 1 was just following him," said Andrews, who nevertheless led at the completion of the second lap and mig ht have led the th ird as well had he not stopped for gas right before the scoring barrels. "I still can't figure out how he goes through them, because 1 could see him do it but 1 was going every which way bu t straight. He would get me through the rocks every time, so 1 had to run from hi m wherever 1could." Andrews led the next two laps and, By Davey Coombs 22 BOYERS, PA, MAY 21 earn Yamaha's Fred Andrews narrowly escaped Boyers, Pennsylvania, with the overall win . For almost three hours Andrews battled back and forth and back and forth with defending GNCC Champion Scott Plessinger and New England woods ma ster Tom Norton before out-sprinting the pa ir to the finish line. Andrews took the checkered flag just one second ahead of the Yamaha YZl25-mounted Norton, who in tum had just on e second to spare on th e KTM 250 E /XC-mounted Plessinger . 'This turns th e whole series around for me,"sai d Andrews, who narrowl y lost th is ra ce las t year to Plessin ger. 'This race wa s almost a do-or-die win for me. I'v e alrea dy had a couple of bad rac es and I needed to win one to get my co nf idence back up. At this time last year 1 alr ead y had a couple o f wins. And any tim e yo u win a race this close it ca n be hard on yo u r nerves . Th e race was just as close last yea r but that time 1 gave it away within a mile of the finish. Thi s time 1 d idn't sp end th e mon ey befor e 1 go t it." . . Round in g out th e top five overa ll were Te a m Su zuki' s Steve Hatch, th e d efend in g AMA National Enduro Champion , and Team Yamaha /SCR' s Duane Conner, who hails from the state of Pennsylvania. Hatch's Suzuki teammate Guy Cooper, who led the points standings going into thi s fifth round of the series, was running fourth until he drowned hi s Suzuki out in a water crossing on the last lap. That mistake cost Cooper two spots in the series standings as Plessinger and Andrews inherited the points lead as the series nears the halfway mark. The Boyers track is considered a favorite among the purest woods riders. No motocross sections (other than some grassy switchbacks in a field ) are on the lo-mile-long course; only woods, rocks and mud from a week's worth of rain. The Racer Productions sta ff, Marion Township VFD and loc al off-road enthusiast Ken Speer collaborated to give the 252 racers another healthy dose of the Boyers badlands. "Boyers is one of my favorite tracks," said Norton. "It's a true hare scrambles course wi th rocks, roots, ruts and plenty of hills. This track most resembles my

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